Cyclists and research show safe passing rules ignored by many

Adrian Collins, 42, was cycling to work when a car travelling about 70km/h came so close to his bike on a roundabout that he thought he was about to die.

"It was a very close shave," said Mr Collins, who records his rides using cameras on the back and front of his bike. They also measure the distance between him and a passing vehicle.

Shaken up: rider Adrian Collins.

Photo: Steven Siewert

He downloads those that show a "blatantly conscious decision [by the motorist] to endanger the life of the rider".

Only 70 NSW motorists have been fined for driving too close to cyclists in the two years since the safe-passing rules were introduced in March 2016, NSW Police said. But about 10,000 drivers are charged with dangerous or negligent driving each year, and many of the fines applied to those driving too close to cyclists, police said.

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New Australian research published in Accident Analysis and Prevention last month found 16 per cent of all drivers drove dangerously close to cyclists. That number rose to 34 per cent of drivers on curved roads and those without bike paths.

Cars must give cyclists at least a metre of space when passing in speed zones of 60km/h or below, and 1.5 metres in higher speed zones, under changes introduced in 2016.

Cycling groups claim not enough has been done to educate the public or enforce the safe-passing rules. Side-swipe collisions account for 14 per cent of cyclist fatalities, and passing too close is the most common type of crash, according to the Queensland research paper.

Instead of relying on the accounts of motorists and cyclists, Queensland researchers used video cameras to examine 1846 passing events. Queensland has the same passing laws for cyclists.

Researcher Ashim Debnath from Victoria University, who led the research, said higher non-compliance rates occurred on higher speed roads (70km/h or higher), where 22.9 per cent of drivers came too close to a cyclist. Curved roads were about three times worse than straight roads, where only 13 per cent drove too close, said Dr Debnath, a civil engineer specialising in transport.

The rate of compliance wasn't influenced by cyclists' behaviour, clothes, gender or other characteristics. It was determined by the type of road and driver.

When the motorist passed within half a metre of his bike on the roundabout, Mr Collins was shocked and angry, and determined to do more to document incidents and alert the police.

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"It was a big wake-up call - my first thoughts were about my family and what could've happened if I'd been half a second faster. It wasn't just the incident, but the behaviour of the driver who didn't even visually engage or acknowledge me," he said.

He reported two close-call incidents to police but said he heard nothing back.

Ron Doolan's morning ride was his favourite part of the day. Last November, Mr Doolan, a father of two daughters, went out for a cycle in Woronora Cemetery in Sydney's south and didn't come home.

Opening a new memorial to her late husband and other cyclists, Mr Doolan's widow Nicole said on Friday her husband's death had ripped her world apart. "You are left in a world that has no meaning or common sense,” she said.

An inquiry into the crash with a car on one of the cemetery's narrow roads hasn't concluded.

In the past 12 months nine cyclists, including Mr Doolan, have been killed on NSW roads, said Police commissioner Mick Fuller at the unveiling.

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Mrs Doolan said Ron had been a strong believer in never letting fear "stop you from doing what you wanted". Yet the volunteer lifesaver put safety first.

"Life is not a guarantee," he had said.

She urged everyone to pursue what they loved as safely as possible.

"As the world gets busier, our ability to concentrate is strained," she said. "We all need to take steps to being more alert and aware on the roads.

"As road users, we need to take that extra moment to look in the mirror or over our shoulder ... It could be that last and final look that could save a life."

The chief executive of Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust Graham Boyd said he hoped the memorial was a reminder to protect vulnerable road users.

"We want everyone who goes out in the morning to come home safely," he said.

Not a day goes by without a cyclist calling Bicycles NSW to report a near miss, said Kim Lavender, the communications spokeswoman for the 15,000-strong organisation.

"A lot of them are quite shocked," she said. "They say 'I almost got killed.' "

The organisation provides advice on how to provide evidence of offences, such as helmet camera footage, but police often "laughed off" complaints.

The NSW Government is considering an evaluation of the minimum passing-distance Rule.

Commissioner Fuller told the crowd at the unveiling of the memorial at Woronora that there was "always more to do" as far as road trauma was concerned. He conceded that sometimes the " message of road safety gets lost", but all of us - and our children - had jumped on a bike sometime.